A Critical Defense of Socialist Realism

8/3/2019 A Critical Defense of Socialist Realism

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A Critical Defense of Socialist Realism:Shostakovichs 5

th Symphony versus the

Shoddy Scholarship of Anti-Communist Re-Interpretation

David PearsonDecember, 2009


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The dominant narrative on Shostakovich, found in CD liner notes, concert programs, and

even in scholarly articles is of a closeted dissident whose music is full of coded anti-communist

messages. Shostakovichs Symphony no. 5 op. 47 in particular is still generally considered to be

a work the composer was forced to write by the Soviet government against his creative desires,

and moreover as being a veiled protest against and ridicule of that government. These popular

misconceptions stem from Volkovs Testimony, a book shown to be a fraud (with the beginning

of each of its chapters virtually identical to writings previously published by Shostakovich)1, yet

whose arguments are still repeated even in academic circles. The truth about Shostakovich and

his Fifth Symphony is far from these misconceptions. Shostakovich was a musician with

tremendous artistic integrity, a sincere if critical commitment to the ideals of the Russian

Revolution, and a desire to create music that served and interacted with his audience.

Shostakovichs Fifth Symphony was an important leap forward in the composers artistic

development, a synthesis of the style he had developed up to that point and would continue to

elucidate for decades, and a work in line with the socialist realist aesthetic promoted in the

Soviet Union of the 1930s.

In order to understand the Fifth Symphony it is necessary to first briefly examine

Shostakovichs musical development in the preceding years and the developing policy towards

music in the Soviet Union. The 1920s was a period of tremendous musical exploration in the

Soviet Union as composers experimented with modernism, sought to put the ideas of the Russian

Revolution to music, and tried to connect their craft to a broad population that previously had

little access to it. Along with this experimentation went a destructive and fanatical factionalism,

most concentrated in the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians2. Shostakovich never

allied himself with any faction, but explored different musical ideas, including those of

modernist European composers, developing a style in the late 1920s that was astringent,

satirical, and highly dissonant3. At the same time, Shostakovich explored more traditional

classical forms, exemplified in his first three symphonies. Boris Schwarz and Laurel Fay sum up

this period in Shostakovichs development as a split focus: concern for tradition against

1See for example Laurel Fay, Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony?,Russian Review Vol. 39,

No. 4 (October 1980): pp. 484-493.2

Richard Taruskin,Defining Russia Musically (Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 2000), pp. 512-

513.3Boris Schwarz and Laurel Fay, Dimitri Shostakovich, The New Grove Russian Masters 2 (New York:

W.W. Norton & Co., 1986), pp. 176.


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challenge of it.4

Shostakovich was also influenced by the revolution and societal transformations around

him. Born on September 25, 1906 (September 12 old style), Shostakovich grew up with several

committed revolutionaries and radicals as close relatives, and in a household typical of

progressive intellectuals in St. Petersburg at the time.5

The 1917 revolution and subsequent civil

war took place during Shostakovichs youth, and its ideas and aspirations found their way into

Shostakovichs second and third symphonies (To October and The 1stof May) as well as

other compositions.6

As an artist, Shostakovich saw his role as tied up with the socialist

direction of his country and creating music that could connect with and serve the people. The

composer told aNew York Times reporter in 1931, There can be no music without ideology

We, as revolutionaries, have a different conception of music. Lenin himself said that music is

a means of unifying broad masses of peopleFor music has the power of stirring specific

emotionsMusic is no longer an end in itself, but a vital weapon in the struggle. Because of

this, Soviet music will probably develop along different lines from any the world has ever

known.7

Shostakovichs operaLady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, popular from 1934-36,

concentrates much about the composers development up to that point. In its intended content,

Shostakovich was attempting to create an opera espousing Marxist philosophy and with an

aesthetic based on socialist realism and a modernist influence. To this end Shostakovich made

significant alterations to the story by Leskov on which the libretto is based. Katerina, the main

character, is transformed into a woman oppressed by the patriarchy of Tsarist Russian society,

and a sympathetic victim who resorts to murder as, in Shostakovichs words, a protest against

the tenor of the life she is forced to live, against the dark and suffocating atmosphere of the

merchant class in the last century8 Shostakovich explained that his own role as a Soviet

composer consists in approaching the story critically and in treating the subject from the Soviet

point of view, while keeping the strength of Leskovs original tale.9

Musically, Shostakovich

4Ibid., pp. 183-184.

5Victor Ilyich Seroff, Dimitri Shostakovich: The Life and Background of a Soviet Composer(New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, 1943), pp. 25-49.6

Schwarz and Fay, Dimitri Shostakovich, The New Grove Russian Masters 2, 176.7The New York Times, December 20, 1931, Dimitri Szostakovitch by Rose Lee, p. X8.

8Quoted in Taruskin, 501.

9 Quoted in Seroff, 249.


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describes making the opera very simple and expressive,10

using a melodic vocal line in

opposition to the theory, at one time popular with us, that modern opera should not have any

sustained vocal line, and that the vocal parts are nothing more than conversation in which the

intonation should be marked.11

In terms of form, Shostakovich explains that the music

progresses always on a symphonic plan12

rather than consisting of separate numbers (arias and

recitative). Lady Macbeth as a composition is both an application of Marxist philosophy,

socialist realist aesthetics (including a concern with making the opera accessible to a popular

audience), and with a definite modernist influence, with Bergs Wozzeckin particular influencing

both the form and style of the work.13

WhileLady Macbeth achieved popular success and was embraced by Soviet music critics

as an exemplification of socialist realism, in January of 1936 Pravda, the official newspaper of

the Communist Party, suddenly and sharply issued a scathing critique of the opera. 14 In its

article Chaos Instead of Music, Pravda criticizedLady Macbeth for its shallow construction,

lack emotional depth, and an unrelieved satirical tone,15

and while describing Shostakovich as a

talented composer, criticized him for formalism (a term that was used in very broad ways to

attack modernism in general, but which means to divorce form from content).16

The musical

community reacted by uncritically joiningPravdas criticism ofLady Macbeth, with no one in

the Union of Soviet Composers coming to Shostakovichs defense17

and composers turning to an

increasingly narrow definition of socialist realism. Socialist realism can be most simply defined

as art that could depict reality in its revolutionary development18

and connect with a wide

audience. As Soviet policy towards music developed in the 1930s, socialist realism came to be

defined as rejecting modernist experimentation wholesale, focusing exclusively on particular

forms (such as cantatas and symphonies), and deriving musical materials from folk melodies

(especially of non-Russian nationalities).19

10Ibid., 251.

11Ibid., 251.

12

Ibid., 251.13Norman Kay, Shostakovich (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 28.

14Schwarz and Fay, Dimitri Shostakovich, The New Grove Russian Masters 2, 177.

15Quoted in Hugh Ottaway, Shostakovich Symphonies (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978), p.

24.16

Francis Maes,A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans

and Erica Pomerans (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002), 128-129.17

Taruskin, 514-516.18

Maes, 110.19 Mark Evan Bonds,A History of Music in Western Culture, 2

nd Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson


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The changes in Soviet policy towards music in the mid-1930s are often treated as though

they simply emerged out of the minds of a few government officials without reason or historical

context. While the errors in this policy, including its rigid insistence on certain forms, extolling

of folk melodies, one-sided rejection of modernism, and use of repression against those who

didnt adhere to this aesthetic should be criticized, it would also be wrong to ignore the historical

context. The Soviet Union was a country of many different nationalities that had been bitterly

oppressed under Tsarist rule, and the use of folk melodies of these diverse cultures was intended

as part of overcoming the subordination of non-Russian peoples. In terms of the about face on

Lady Macbeth in particular, the Soviet Union increasingly promoted Russian nationalism (in

ways that went against its professed communist ideology) in response to and as part of preparing

for the looming threat of invasion by Nazi Germany. Part and parcel of this promotion of

nationalism was a rehabilitation of the traditional family, which had been significantly

undermined after the revolution. By making a hero out of a woman who murdered her husband

and father-in-law, the libretto ofLady Macbeth did not fit well with the new political

atmosphere,20

nor did the open display of Katerinas sexuality in the music and staging of the

opera.21

Shostakovich was publicly silent in the face of this major criticism from Pravda. He

went on composing his Symphony No. 4, Op. 43, already in progress at the time.22

While the

anti-communist narrative would have it that this work was a continuation of Shostakovichs

creative path put to end by the Soviet government, more objective critics have shown this

symphony to be indicative of the transition the composer was undergoing at the time, refining his

craft and continuing to experiment with elements that would be better achieved in his Fifth

Symphony. Mahlers symphonies were becoming an influence on Shostakovich at this time, and

here this influence is a bit less refined.23

As the composer said, it suffered from

grandiosomania.24

And while modernism is certainly an element of the 4th

Symphony, this

work and others (such as the 24 Preludes for Piano, Op. 34 composed in 1932-3, the Concerto for

Piano, Trumpet and Strings, Op. 35 composed in 1933, and the Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op.

/ Prentice Hall, 2006), p. 605.20

Kay, pp. 25-26.21

Taruskin, 505.22

Ottaway, 19.23

Ibid., 24.24Quoted in Schwarz and Fay, Dimitri Shostakovich, The New Grove Russian Masters 2, 185.


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40 composed in 1934) composed by Shostakovich in the same period are more of a move away

from his fuller engagement with modernism in the late 1920s.25

Shostakovich ended up pulling

his Fourth Symphony from performance during rehearsal, and while it has been alleged he was

pressured to do so,26

even eighteen months before his death and long after the controversy over

Lady Macbeth, Shostakovich criticized his Fourth Symphony for its shallow construction and for

being too long, with too many imperfect, ostentatious elements in itand that he revised it

over a number of years, and even now I dont think Ive quite got it right.27

After the Fourth

Symphony, Shostakovich clearly saw the need for better organization of his symphonies and

eliminating excesses.28

Shostakovichs Fifth Symphony, premiered on November 21, 1937, was the composers

first new major composition to be performed afterPravdas criticism, and is a monumental work

that was met with critical acclaim in the late 1930s and continues to hold an important place in

the orchestral repertoire today.29

It is in D minor with four movements, the first movement a

moderato to allegro and back to moderato, the second movement a scherzo and trio, the third a

largo, and closing with a bombastic allegro finale. As a whole it is filled with an incredible

tension that is only finally resolved at the very end of the fourth movement.

Shostakovich could have easily played it safe in response to Pravdas criticisms and

composed a socialist cantata or something based on folk tunes.30

He instead composed a

symphony based on his own material, tonal yet full of dissonance, using elements he had been

criticized for (such as the satirical tone of the second movement), yet refining them and fitting

them organically to the symphony as a whole, and throughout rising to the challenge of creating

his best symphony yet. Though the subtitle A Soviet Artists Reply to Just Criticism did not

originate with Shostakovich, he nonetheless seems to have takenPravdas criticisms seriously, if

critically.31

In this respect he did not betray his artistic integrity and creative development while

also continuing to adhere to the socialist realist aesthetic. Shostakovich described his Fifth

25Ottaway, pp. 24-25.

26Laurel Fay, Shostakovich: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 95-96.

27Quoted in Ottaway, 19.

28Boris Schwarz,Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,

1972), p. 171.29

Schwarz and Fay, Dimitri Shostakovich, The New Grove Russian Masters 2, 185-186.30

Ottaway, 25.31 Ibid.,, 25.


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Symphony as being about the making of man,32

and the tension found throughout the way the

music goes through a transformative process up to its final resolution gives credence to this

description and fits in with the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism.

The opening phrase of the first movement (example 1) immediately gives the listener a

sense of tension and resolution. Here Shostakovich manages to define the D minor tonality

while pushing beyond its limitations, and immediately set the tone of tension and resolution

characteristic of the symphony as a whole through the gradually smaller intervals and the ending

on A (suggesting a cadence given the D minor key).33

Much of the material that will be used and

built upon throughout the movement is introduced in these first five measures.

Example 1: Dimitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Op. 47, Mvmt. 1, mm. 1-5.34

Besides obvious features such as the way the opening intervals in double dotted rhythms

are returned to in different ways throughout the movement and brought to even more frenzied

32Kay, 32.

33 Ibid., 33.


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heights, material from these measures is used for melodic and background figures throughout the

movement.35

The descending line in measure three, for example, is used in various

transformations, beginning in the second theme that is introduced right after the first theme, and

used often at the end of phrases and especially as part of fast runs during the allegro section (the

rhythm there is an eighth note and two sixteenths, but the musical idea is the same).

The simple rhythm the violins end with (two eighth notes on the upbeat leading to the

downbeat) find use as a background figure in various sections with drastic differences in mood.

The string section uses this rhythm as an accompaniment figure to a smooth melody introduced

in measure 51 at a piano dynamic using half notes and whole notes tied to a half note with wide

interval leaps (example 2a). As the tempo and nervous energy increase, this rhythm is doubled

(an eighth note and two sixteenths notes) and used as a background figure by various sections of

the orchestra that gives the movement a strong propulsion forward and an almost frantic quality

(example 2b). As the first movement winds down to a close, this background figure is used

again, this time back to two eighths on the upbeat leading into the downbeat, and serving to

decrease the tension rather than propel the music forward.

Example 2a: Dimitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Op. 47, Mvmt. 1, mm. 50-60.36

34Dimitri Shostakovich, Symphony No.5, Op. 47(London: Anglo-Soviet Press), pp. 3-4.

35Kay, 33-34.

36 Shostakovich, 8-9.


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Example 2b: Dimitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Op. 47, Mvmt. 1, mm. 176-177.37

The rising fourth (in this case A to D) with which this phrase ends is used throughout the

first movement, including in the third theme described above, and can be seen as a musical

expression signifying striving toward a goal. In the allegro section, the way the violins rise

higher in pitch using the dotted rhythms of the opening motif can also be interpreted as

conveying the same idea. This sense of striving continually meets with temporary defeat in the

music until the end of the finale.

The importance of this rather technical description of the myriad ways in which the

material of the opening measures is utilized and transformed is in how Shostakovich has created

tremendous organic connection within the first movement using very little material that is rather

simple in nature. Not only does this make for a well-organized symphony beyond

Shostakovichs previous work, it is also in line with a commitment to socialist realist aesthetics.

The simple material could be easily understood by a broad audience, and its transformations both

from melody to background material and vice versa and its use to convey differing moods are

quite palpable. Shostakovichs concern here is not with sonata form in a traditional academic

sense but rather with developing an organic and deeply inter-connected work that is capable of

conveying a variety of emotions and taking the listener on a profound musical journey. In this

endeavor he is tremendously successful.

The second phrase (example 2) both picks up on material from the first phrase and

continues to provide material for further development. It is introduced at a piano volume, and

the first two measures, given their slurred phrasing and slow unaccented rhythm, serve as

something of a respite from the dramatic tension of the first phrase without completely diffusing

the mood created. Later during the allegro middle section of the movement when these two

measures are played by the brass section at an accented fortissimo volume at double the rhythmic

value, they take on a whole new power, mood, and intensity and serve an entirely different

37Shostakovich, 22.


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purpose. As the energy is brought down at the end of this movement, these two measures are

played by the flute in inversion.


The third measure of this phrase contains the first rising sixteenth note line which in this

case reaches a minor ninth above its starting pitch and resolves down by half step; a wonderfully

tense way to continue the idea of rising leaps, in this case the leap being both from the original

starting point and the diminished fifth between the apex and the proceeding sixteenth note. Here

the apex the melody reaches to does not seem a desirable goal to strive for, and is followed by a

descent downward over the next two measures. Longer rising sixteenth note runs which often

reach to dissonant places become integral to developing the nervous energy of the allegro

section. The descending figure (dotted eighth note and two thirty-second notes) is also used

prominently throughout the movement (though at faster tempos they become an eighth note

followed by two sixteenth notes).

The end of this second phrase (a rising eighth note, sixteenth note rest, and then sixteenth

note tied to the following eighth note) contains pitches drawn from an octatonic scale. Here

Shostakovich has managed to use modernist musical material without breaking out of the overall

tonal symphony and in a way that serves the musical purposes (had this line been a major or

minor scale it would have resolved the tension). This idea (both its rhythm and pitches) is used

in different ways as the nervous energy mounts throughout the movement. Interestingly, it bears

striking similarity to thematic material in the first movement of Schulhoffs Third Symphony,

composed in 1935 after turning towards pure socialist realism in his music after his visit to the

Soviet Union.39

Schulhoff composed the melody for the first movement of his Third Symphonyusing almost exclusively pitches from the octatonic scale, with a passage containing the exact

same rhythm and a similar contour to what Shostakovich used here. In addition, another part of

38Shostakovich, 4.

39Josef Bek, Schulhoff, Erwin, Grove Music Online,

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/25128?q=schulhof


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Schulhoffs melody bares a striking resemblance in its pitches, rhythm, and contour to the first

two measures of Shostakovichs second phrase, a resemblance made even more striking when

the trumpets use this motif and the octatonic motif back to back at measures 188-196.40

The second movement in Shostakovichs Fifth Symphony is a scherzo and trio in 3/4. Its

satirical style provides an important relief to the dramatic tension of the first movement. While it

could be alleged that the presence of a satirical style makes this symphony deliberately

ridiculous, this argument is overly simplistic. For one thing, if the entire symphony contained

the level of nervous tension attained in the first movement, it would be rather difficult to sit

through. Some contrast provided by a more light-hearted movement is necessary (including to

bring back the tension in the following movement). In contrast to the use of this satirical style in

previous works, Hugh Ottaway notes that For Shostakovich the achievement lay in writing such

a movement without indulging in grotesqueness and eccentricity. There is a genuine gaiety here,

and a sense of fun rather than satire; the ideas and their treatment are perfectly to scale, and the

three-part design comes out in one.41

That Shostakovich was able to refine the satirical

dimension of his compositional style and include this element in the Fifth Symphony is testament

to the way this work represents an advance in Shostakovichs development, and to his ability to

push beyond while still being within the limits being imposed in the name of socialist realism at

the time.

The third movement, a largo in F# minor, displays Shostakovichs sensitive introspective

side. It does not use the brass and in this respect provides contrast with the powerful drive of the

other movements. Like the first movement, the themes display a wide range of expressions

depending on how the composer decides to use them. The movement as a whole has a deeply

introspective character to it, often with a feeling of despair. Taking the meaning of the

symphony as the making of man, this movement would be analogous to the dark hour before

dawn, where the tension of the first movement has taken its toll, and the music indicates a

reflection on the struggle going on.

The fourth movement, an allegro non troppo in D minor, suddenly breaks the mood of

the largo and begins an intense march toward its conclusion. The much repeated claim that the

f&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit,accessed 12/11/09.40

Based on my transcriptions of Ervin Schulhoff, Symphonies 1-3, Philharmonia Hungarica, cond. George

Alexander Albrecht (Classic Produktion Osnabruck 999 251-2, 1994).41 Ottaway, 27-28.


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ending in D major was simply a parody of the optimism demanded of socialist realist music is

too often the only thing people associate with Shostakovichs Fifth Symphony. But if one really

listens to this finale with unbiased ears, one can hear how this D major conclusion isnt a parody,

but rather is hinted at throughout the whole movement and built up to with incredible

compositional skill.42

This drive towards a conclusion is immediately established by the timpani

A-D to the ascending brass line that begins this finale and carried on with the theme introduced

by the woodwinds and first violins at measure 11. Unlike in the first movement, the tension

created in this movement does not close in on itself (as it does quite literally in the first phrase of

the first movement), but rather strives toward a resolution.

The first hint at this resolution is heard in a lyrical melody introduced by the trumpet solo

at measure 83 (example 3). Especially in contrast to the material so far, this melody has a

definite optimistic, dreamy character to it. When it is first introduced by the trumpet, it sharply

contrasts with the unresolved tension of the sixteenth note passages in the woodwinds and

strings. The orchestra then builds towards a climactic moment with the first violins repeating E6

sixteenth notes and the woodwinds playing a similar idea, the brass playing a descending line

towards a reiterated dotted quarter note - triplet sixteenth notes figure, and the tuba, bassoons,

and cellos picking up where the descending brass line left off. What bursts forth from this

climax is the optimistic lyrical melody that was introduced by the solo trumpet, this time played

by the violins, violas, and upper woodwinds (the latter at a triple forte dynamic). This moment

of optimistic joy ends with the lyrical melody overpowered by the orchestra and disappearing,

and when the orchestra seems to crash in on itself the trombones and horns play a repeated figure

of two eighth notes leading to a quarter note on a repeated pitch (reminiscent of the background

figure used in the first movement).


The orchestra stays in this mood of despair and then gradually builds back up the tense

drive to the end. As the orchestra nears the D major conclusion, the character of the tension,

unlike throughout the rest of the symphony, is one demanding resolution, reaching an intense

42Ottaway, 28.

43 Shostakovich, 122-123.


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dissonance by having every instrument not playing an A playing some leading tone towards a

note in the D major triad. When the D major end is reached, the brass bring back the ascending

motif from the very beginning of the fourth movement, this time in major instead of minor. The

woodwinds and strings play repeated high-pitched eighth notes, and the brass finally ends by

powerfully reiterating the D major triad. In contrast to the dreamy character of the optimistic

lyrical theme in the middle of this movement, the D major ending sounds firm and conclusive.

There is also a way in which this D major ending sounds as though it bursts through the tension.

While this has been argued as evidence that the D major ending is forced, given the theme of

struggle throughout the whole symphony it is not difficult to understand this bursting through

quality as expressing the final push over obstacles to succeed in the struggle that has went on

since the opening measures of the first movement.

Besides the elements within the composition of this movement described above that drive

towards this D major conclusion, it is also worth noting that this kind of ending is not out of

character with the symphonies Shostakovich was influenced by. Mahler, whose symphonies had

a major impact on Shostakovich in the 1930s, ended his First Symphony in a similar manner.44

One can also take this triumphant finale as fitting within a tradition of Fifth Symphony endings

that includes those of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky45

(though these composers do not get the

same stigma attached to them for their triumphant finales). Given the incredible tension and

nervous energy of Shostakovichs Fifth Symphony, there is no way anything but an overly

powerful and repetitive resolution to this tension would suffice.

While the above musical analysis of Shostakovichs Fifth Symphony, his own published

views and explanations of his music, and the overall context point to Shostakovich being a

highly developed composer committed in broad terms to making socialist realist music (while

likely critical of many of its particular applications), the more popularly known story around the

Fifth Symphony is the opposite. Such a re-interpretation of Shostakovich has taken place in

order to repackage one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century as a closeted Soviet

dissident, because to define him any other way would not be in line with the anti-communist

narrative of those doing the re-interpreting. This repackaging has involved rather simplistic

rationalizations and often blatant inaccuracies.

44Schwarz, 172.

45 Taruskin, 533.


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Volkovs claim that you have to be a complete oaf46

not to hear the D major ending to

the Fifth Symphony as a forced parody has been refuted with the above analysis of the finale.

Others have attempted to point to specific musical elements as represent ing Shostakovichs scorn

for particular aspects of the Soviet government. Richard Taruskin points out the blatant error in

one such attempt by Ian MacDonald. MacDonald claimed that in a passage of the Fifth

Symphony in which the melody is given to the flute and horn, Shostakovich is obviously making

a parody of government officials who were uncritically obedient to Stalin by having the horn

reach up to a high pitch. Taruskin points out that in the score, Shostakovich writes that the horn

should play this note down an octave if it needs to, indicating that Shostakovich does not intend

this to come off sounding like a parody.47

More important than particular examples, however, is the problem with the reductionist

methodology applied by such critics as MacDonald. Shostakovich himself opposed such

methodology when it was applied in the Soviet Union, writing in 1933 that When a critic

writes that in such-and-such a symphony the Soviet civil servants are represented by the oboe

and the clarinet, and Red Army men by the brass section, then you want to scream!48

Since

musical elements in and of themselves can be interpreted in different ways by different listeners,

it is necessary to look at contexts in which music was composed and to the extent possible

ascertain the intentions of the composer.

In order to obfuscate the context of Shostakovichs music, attempts have been made to

generalize its meaning and then fit it in to an anti-communist narrative. Through this lens, in the

Fifth Symphony the making of man becomes the struggle against Stalin (which somehow of

course the leaders of the Soviet Union failed to notice).

Francis Maes points out an erroneous way in which Karen Kopp attempts such a

generalization of meaning and a subsequent re-interpretation of Shostakovichs Eleventh

Symphony, The Year 1905. Kopp generalizes the meaning of Shostakovichs explicit

dedication to the 1905 revolution as a struggle of freedom against tyranny, and then claims that

Shostakovich meant this to be applied as a protest against the Soviet intervention in Hungary that

took place a year before the Eleventh Symphony was composed. Kopp backs up her argument

46Solomon Volkov, Testimony: The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich(New York: Harper & Row

Publishers, Inc., 1979), 183.47

Taruskin, 538-539.48 Quoted in Maes, 348-349.


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with the fact that a melody from Polish Workers Party song about independence from Tsarist

Russia makes this connection with Hungary definite. Such a leap of imagination completely

ignores Shostakovichs explicit reference to a particular historical event with an en tirely different

context than the 1956 intervention in Hungary.49

Such abstract universalism has stripped music of its intended meaning and historical

context in order for it to be more easily fit with the prevailing ideology and not challenge us to

think deeply about what the music is saying. Were Beethovens music to go down in history as

the soundtrack to the French Reign of Terror it would be difficult to promote him in the present

Western political order in which the excesses of the most radical wing of the French revolution

are condemned (and while obviously this is an exaggeration of Beethovens views and the role of

his music, his sympathies for the French Revolution are well established). Some would have us

believe that Shostakovichs war symphonies (Nos. 7 and 8) were really a condemnation of Stalin

rather than the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, even though an objective look at the historical

context shows that even the most bitter enemies of the Russian Revolution supported the Soviet

Union against Nazi Germany during the war,50

and it would be hard to believe that

Shostakovichs main thoughts while enduring German bombing of Leningrad were about Stalin.

While it is of course possible to take any piece of music and give it new meaning by fitting it in a

different context, it is dishonest to claim that somehow this was the intended meaning of the

composer all along, or to deny the specific extra-musical content a composer gave to their work.

The particular obsession with finding the ways in which Shostakovichs creativity was

repressed in the Soviet Union has not yet been generalized to look at the struggle of freedom

against tyranny throughout the development of music in Western culture, which, among other

things would point to the ways in which religious authorities determined much about what music

was allowed and what was suppressed in Europe for several centuries.

What is most unfortunate in the case of Shostakovich is the way in which the biased and

often erroneous information from authors such as Volkov and MacDonald has become popular

knowledge about the composer, even after it has been refuted. Francis Maes argues that this has

much to do with the operation of the functioning of the music market. The symphony and the

string quartet remain as the two most important commercial institutions in classical music.

49Maes, 349-350.

50 Taruskin, 496.


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While the Western avante-garde rejected these institutions, in the Soviet Union they were

promoted. In the 1970s, as orchestras and string quartets looked for new music to perform, the

works of Shostakovich were the logical place to turn. But in order to promote the music of a

Soviet composer in the two most important commercial institutions of classical music in the

West, Maes argues that it was necessary to strip his music of its communist content and re-

package him as a secret dissident.51

While Maes makes an important point here in regard to market mechanisms, it would

also be wrong to reduce the repackaging of Shostakovich as an anti-communist dissident to

simply the operations of the music market. Such a view denies that Western liberal democracy

promotes a specific ideology (and thus is inherently superior to countries such as the Soviet

Union that did openly promote a specific ideology). Moreover, such a view fails to see the

connection between the re-interpretation of Shostakovich with the general wave of anti-

communism that has been so promoted in the United States in recent decades. Why else would

Volkovs bookTestimony receive such favorable reviews from major newspapers that

subsequently ignored the factual errors in the book and evidence of it being a fraud?52

As

American capitalism has emerged triumphant, critical thought has been discarded when it comes

to challenges to the notion that liberal democracy is the best possible world.

A key component of ideology actively promoted in liberal democracies is the notion of

individual freedom as the most important right. Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to get an

objective understanding of Shostakovich. If one evaluates artistry with individual freedom as the

most important criteria, it would be impossible to understand a composer who was so devoted to

connecting his music to a mass audience and his desire to make music that could help push

forward the ideals of the Russian Revolution. It would also be impossible to understand the need

to give that segment of the population that has been denied it the right to participate in and

enjoy music of the quality composed by such musicians as Shostakovich. While in liberal

democracies many achievements were made over the last century in developing the creative

capacity of music to explore new directions, this has went along with a situation in which such

creativity is increasingly the preserve of music departments on college campuses, with no

connection to a broader audience and no effect on the broader society. Shostakovich would have

51Maes, 345-348.

52Laurel Fay, Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony?, Russian Review Vol. 39, No. 4, p. 484.


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deplored this situation.

Such a view also fails to recognize the positive role constraint can play in creative

development. After composing theRite of Spring, Stravinsky recognized the problem created by

the opening up of so many possibilities with the advent of modernism and began imposing

constraints on himself (such as instrumentation and particular sounds) before beginning a new

composition. As he explained, the more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of

the chains that shackle the spirit.53

J.S. Bach had to devote much of his creative energies to

composing cantatas for the church at which he was employed, and many of these cantatas are

celebrated today as works of musical genius (and the church is not castigated for having confined

Bachs skills to this genre). In Shostakovichs case, constraint may have led him to a more

serious and refined engagement with the symphonic form, and resulted in several of the greatest

orchestral works of the twentieth century. While he may have created great operas had it not

been forPravdas condemnation ofLady Macbeth, in answer to the socialist realist aesthetic

demanded of composers (and likely with some degree of unity, even if a critical unity, with this

aesthetic), Shostakovich succeeded in taking the symphonic form to new heights and refining his

own skill. Shostakovich stands out among Soviet composers exactly because he was adept at

working within government policy without being slavish towards it.

Socialist realism in the Soviet Union failed to nurture creative capacity and

experimentation from most of its composers in part because it failed to understand the role art

can play not only in bringing people together and celebrating progress, but also in challenging

society with new ideas and new ways of thinking, and to thinking critically in its own right.

Furthermore, as particular definitions of socialist realism emerged from the Soviet government in

the 1930s, these narrowly attached aesthetics to government policy (and the more wrong these

government policies were the worse the aesthetics demanded became). A telling example of this

trend taken to extremes was with Prokofievs music to the filmAlexander Nevsky. Directed by

Sergei Eisenstein, the film depicted the defeat of the Teutonic knights that invaded Russia in the

thirteenth century. The film was created when the threat of invasion by Nazi Germany was a

grave concern in the Soviet Union, and as a historical reference to resistance to German invasion,

was at first promoted for its patriotism. Prokofievs music for the film was likewise celebrated

as being a good example of the socialist realist aesthetic. But when the Soviet Union signed a

53 Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 49.


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non-aggression pact with Germany, the film was no longer shown.54

Such an erroneous

approach was one reason forPravdas condemnation ofLady Macbeth. Nonetheless it would be

wrong to take these changing policies on musical aesthetics out of historical contexts. Insisting

that all music be optimistic might sound ridiculous in the abstract, but to a country facing the

threat of war from Nazi Germany (whose military might far exceeded the Soviet Union in the

1930s) and with no allies to rely on, demanding optimistic music sounds quite rational (and such

optimism would in fact be quite necessary for the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany in World

War II).

For all the critiques that can be made of the actual policies of socialist realism in music in

the Soviet Union of the 1930s, the central ideas of this aesthetic, namely that music connect

with a broad audience and help move society in a radical direction forward, remain valid and

almost completely missing from most art music today. As much as the shoddy scholarship of

anti-communist re-interpretation would deny it, perhaps one of the main reasons Shostakovichs

music remains so popular today is because he managed to apply these central ideas of socialist

realist aesthetics with such tremendous compositional skill in his Fifth Symphony and many

other works.

54Bonds, 604-606


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Bibliography

Bek, Josef. Schulhoff, Erwin, Grove Music Online,

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/subscriber/article/grov

e/music/25128?q=schulhoff&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit, accessed 12/11/09.

Bonds, Mark Evan. A History of Music in Western Culture, 2nd

Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2006.

Fay, Laurel. Shostakovich: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Fay, Laurel. Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony?Russian Review Vol. 39, No. 4(October, 1980): pp. 484-493.

Kay, Norman. Shostakovich. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Maes, Francis.A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar, trans. Arnold J.

Pomerans and Erica Pomerans. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California

Press, 2002.

Ottaway, Hugh. Shostakovich Symphonies. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978.

Schulhoff, Ervin. Symphonies 1-3, Philharmonia Hungarica, cond. George Alexander Albrecht.Classic Produktion Osnabruck 999 251-2, 1994.

Schwarz, Boris.Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970. New York: W.W. Norton& Co., 1972.

Schwarz, Boris, and Faye, Laurel. Dimitry Shostakovich. The New Grove Russian Masters 2,

pp. 175-231. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986.

Shostakovich, Dimitri. Symphony No. 5, Op. 47. London: Anglo-Soviet Music Press.

Seroff, Victor Ilyich.Dimitri Shostakovich: The Life and Background of a Soviet Composer.

New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1943.

Stravinsky, Igor. Poetics of Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Taruskin, Richard.Defining Russia Musically. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Volkov, Solomon. Testimony: The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich. New York: Harper & Row

Publishers, Inc., 1979.

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A Critical Defense of Socialist Realism

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